


one last kiss (i love you like an alcoholic)

by hetahonda



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, FACE Family, FrUK, M/M, Off-Screen Murder, One Shot, Songfic, arthur kirkland is a bitter little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetahonda/pseuds/hetahonda
Summary: Ex-husbands Arthur and Francis are reunited at their eldest son’s murder trial. A messed up family is once again brought back together by messed up circumstances.
Relationships: England/France (Hetalia)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 66





	one last kiss (i love you like an alcoholic)

**Author's Note:**

> song in question is _I Love You Like An Alcoholic_ by The Taxpayers

A small part of Arthur watches his life play out with an odd sense of morbid fascination. He had learnt a long time ago that there’s no sense in self-pity, and that if his life were to go downhill, maybe, at least, he’d have some fun watching. 

Alfred, his eldest son, cuffed and clad in a bright orange jumpsuit, brilliant blue eyes that once so often shone with excitement and joy as a boy, now hard and cold as he stands trial for the murder of an old boyfriend. Matthew, his younger son, keeping true to the vow that he had made at eighteen to never see any of them again, nowhere in sight. Francis, his ex-husband, sitting silently beside him with dry eyes and a coat much too pleasant to be attending his estranged son’s murder trial in. 

Bitterly, Arthur thinks to himself - _How’s this for a family reunion?_

It’s easy to disassociate, to pretend that this isn’t Arthur’s estranged son, his pride and joy in happier times now far behind him. Arthur had heard all the details, watched the ongoing trial as if it were nothing more than daytime TV. A charming young man fresh out of college, tall and strapping and intelligent and everything his fathers had hoped for, beating his boyfriend to death in an alleged domestic dispute.

Arthur sees Alfred bend down to speak into the mic, his blank stare resting languidly on Kiku’s distraught older brother. His voice is hollow, and Arthur almost doesn’t recognise it. “I was angry. I loved him. I’m sorry.”

Those words hurtle Arthur back into memories of years ago. Back into the nights of drunken screaming matches with Francis, until the boys have to put themselves to bed, until Arthur wakes up with a hangover, until everything is patched up with empty apologies and promises - repeated so many times that the words lose its meaning, that it becomes a formality. And then the cycle would repeat. 

The trial proceeds. Arthur is almost disgusted with himself for how little worry he feels for his first born son. Alfred does not look at his fathers, not even once. His steely blue eyes look like they belong to that of a stranger’s. Empty. The blond boy that looks so much like Arthur is a shell of the boy he and his former husband had once raised. 

Alfred pleads guilty. Arthur asks Francis to join him for a drink.

~

“I suppose that’s it.”

Arthur idly swirls his glass, watching the golden brown liquid that had been his lifeline for the past few years go round and round in his hand. Francis had opted for a water, and Arthur nearly laughed in his face. A bitter, petty side of Arthur saw it as a swipe at his dignity, a show of how much of a better person Francis had become compared to him. 

Francis chuckles to himself, a completely inappropriate response given the circumstances. His laugh is flat, dripping with resentment. Behind his social graces and his new coat that stinks of the upper crust, he’s still the same, fucked up person Arthur had fallen for in his college years. “I would ask which of us went wrong in raising him, but I’d argue you, because Alfred was always your favourite.”

“You did a good one, having Matthew as your favourite,” Arthur gripes. He’s still sore over it, and the very mention of Matthew causes a self-loathing smirk to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Better a bastard son that walked out on his toe-rag parents before it was too late, don’t you think?”

“And after Matthew walked out, we walked out on each other,” Francis muses, the ghost of a smile playing lightly on his tired expression. “Face it, Arthur. Our relationship was doomed from the start.”

Five years ago, Arthur would have flung his glass at the wall behind him. Five years ago, Arthur would have shouted, called Francis every name in the book as Francis would scream obscenities back at him. 

Arthur’s not that man anymore. He takes a careful sip of his whiskey. “How have you been?”

“I’m alright. Work is decent. There’s not much. How about you?”

The words tumble out of Arthur’s mouth before he has the chance to stop them. “How’s Alice?”

Alice. Francis’s new girlfriend. High class, good job, pretty, stable. So _fucking_ stable. That was all she needed to be to be everything Arthur wasn’t, and it disgusts him. The very thought that Francis deserves happiness, surely, and that he would never find it with Arthur.

Arthur almost doesn’t hear Francis’s response. “We broke up.”

“Huh. Well, how about that.” Arthur’s happy. Arthur’s unexplainably happy - that’s what he tells himself, but some nagging, loathing part of his head knows full well the reason why - and he struggles to keep the tinge of pleasant surprise out of his voice. 

“We fought for the first time that night,” Francis goes on, not meeting Arthur’s eyes. “I was drunk. I shouted at her, tore her down verbally, and it scared me. I don’t want to hold her back. She doesn’t deserve it.”

The laugh that escapes Arthur is dry, resentful. “And I did?”

Francis looks at him, head cocked slightly to the side in amusement. His soft blue eyes hold a familiar look of endearment - loving and warm and making Arthur question if he had drunk too much already. “Oh, but Arthur. You would always shout back.”

Their doomed romance was fuelled as much with alcohol as it was with love. It was so easy to get caught up in the good times - in the gentle shows of affection, in the pride they had for their sons - as it was in the bad. It was addictive. Arthur would find himself lost in the whirlwind of dysfunctionality - nights blurring into drunken fights, drunken kisses, as if the latter would be enough to make up for the hurt they would put each other through. 

It was familiar. It was constant. It was the only thing he had known out of a relationship, and he was intent on staying in it until it killed him.

Francis, for better or for worse, wasn’t. 

Arthur downs half of his whiskey, and slides the glass across the table to Francis. “Quit being such a prude. You look like you need a drink.”

~

One drink becomes several. It always comes down to that when it comes to the two of them.

Arthur feels his walls crumbling, and he can tell that Francis’s is too. Just like that, they’ve broken down the walls that they’d spent their five years apart building up, and Arthur finds himself falling back into the bottomless pit that he had spent every day after the divorce clawing himself out of. Everything is hazy and muddy and nothing matters but the charming French boy with the pretty hair and the kind eyes that Arthur had fallen for as a silly college student.

It always comes back to this. It always comes back to the booze and the sickening high that Francis makes Arthur feel, no matter how bad he knows they are for each other.

Arthur never really could hold his liquor anyway. He hiccups. “Look at us. Look at us both. Sitting here and drinking to our bastard son’s life sentence. Who would’ve thought?”

“You never - you never answered my question,” Francis mumbles, leaning closer to Arthur. Arthur can almost taste the smell of whiskey on his former husband’s breath. “How have you been?”

“What do you think?” Arthur asks bitterly. “The only relationship I’ve ever had that has lasted as long as our’s did is with alcohol.”

“You’re not answering the question.”

Had Arthur been sober, his pride would have served as an adequate defence, his pride would have kept him from looking like he still cared for Francis, that he had been anything but coping since the divorce. Arthur doesn’t care about that right now.

“Fucking _hell_ you frog, can’t you tell that I’ve missed you?!”

It feels almost bittersweet, finally choking out the words like a poison that had been embedded in his insides for so long. The confession leaves a sour aftertaste on his tongue, and Arthur knows that he’s making himself look like a tool - weak and pathetic in front of the one person he knows he should detest. 

Arthur isn’t sure what kind of response he’s waiting for. He’s ready to deflect pity with a snide remark, anger with another drunken fight with Francis - heck, some deranged, toxic part of him wouldn’t mind the latter. 

Francis’s voice is sad, but oddly tender. “I missed you too, Arthur.”

Some desperate, feral part of Arthur’s drunken self wants to pull Francis towards him, take his lips with his own. It’s a hopeless attempt at filling the gaping hole Arthur’s failed marriage had left in his heart. Some part of Arthur just longed for Francis’s smell again, his touch, the feeling of his soft, gentle hands in Arthur’s - deceiving him, for just a moment, that everything was going to be alright. 

Arthur isn’t nearly drunk enough for that. “Shut up.” It doesn’t come out as convincing as he had hoped it would be. “Shutup. I can’t keep- can’t keep seeing you like this,” he slurs. His heart is racing, and whether it’s from the booze or the aching longing for Francis that he’s struggling to fight down, he can’t tell. “I was getting better! I swear I was, you jackoff! But nooooo...” He can’t get angry at Francis, no matter how hard he tries. “You just have to- waltz back into my life like that! You just can’t _fucking_ let me get over you.”

Arthur’s rambling, hot tears stinging the sides of his eyes. His head hurts. He doesn’t know what he wants anymore. “You know what you are? You’re- you’re the bottles of fucking booze I keep in my house to keep me sane. You’re shit. You’re so bad for me but I just can’t fucking let you go.”

He isn’t sure what stings whatever’s left of his pride more, the way Francis eases the glass out of his hand, or his little whisper of “Fuck, Arthur”.

“What is it now, love? Going to leave again?” Arthur drawls, voice reeking of alcohol and loathing. 

“I’m going to go now.” Francis is nowhere near as drunk as Arthur. While Arthur supposes that he should be grateful, _really_ , that at least one of them is making the right choices for once, he feels nothing but spite for letting Francis be the one to do it. “I’m not... I can’t keep causing you pain like this, Arthur. I’m sorry.”

Arthur wanted to laugh. Trust Francis to be the one level-headed enough to walk out, once again, even after all these years. An unhealthy, toxic part of Arthur doesn’t want to let him go. Some part of him still yearns for the drunken fights, the insincere apologies, any way to keep Francis by his side, even if it hurt him. Another part of him, learning to heal, however slowly, doesn’t move to stop Francis from getting up and leaving. 

His voice comes out, strangled, every word digging even deeper into the old wounds in his heart. “Come now, Francis. Give me one last kiss before you go. Just for old time’s sake.”

Francis stops, turning to look back at him. There’s no more spite in his expression - just a kind of muted sadness behind his normally strong blue eyes. It’s over for good between the two of them, and they both know it. 

Arthur gets up, hand gripping the table to steady himself, as he sways slightly on his feet. He’s bloody fucking drunk, and his pride is going to make him regret all this in the morning, but for now, he’s too numb to care. Francis takes a step towards him, and gently tilts Arthur’s chin to meet his gaze.

In the dim yellow glow of the bar’s overhead lights, Francis almost looks like the same boy Arthur had met in his first year of college. Blond hair that fell around his face so prettily in a way that Arthur didn’t even think was possible, and eyes that sparkled so bright with a love for life and all it had to offer. 

The kiss is quick. Tender, sweet, everything that their relationship is not. Francis tastes like whiskey and smells like the warm familiarity of the home they once shared, and Arthur knows that if he lingers for just a moment more, he’ll fall back into the cycle of longing and pain and regret once more. 

They pull apart after a moment, and Francis turns to walk out of the bar without a second look. Arthur collapses back into his seat, his hand unconsciously closing around his glass. 

~

A small part of Arthur watches his life play out with an odd sense of wonderment. He had learnt a while ago that his early twenties are supposed to be the best years of his life, and that he should enjoy the moments while they last. 

Alfred, his eldest son, clad in his Little League Baseball jersey that is way too big for him, eyes shining with unadulterated joy as he runs as hard as his tiny legs can carry him across the field. Matthew, his younger son, sitting in his husband’s lap and cheering for his big brother from the stands. Francis, his husband, sitting beside him in a shirt much too nice to be attending a Little League Baseball match in. 

It’s a Sunday, and it’s the first time in weeks that Arthur has time to take off work to spend with his family.

Contentedly, Arthur thinks to himself - _Huh. Talk about a family reunion._

**Author's Note:**

> i love fruk and i love ameripan and i think this is the most fucked up thing i’ve ever written for this fandom, so that’s a first


End file.
